649 New Friends--Or How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Somewhat by luck and happy accident, I got to be a counselor at Youth Conference this year. 550 young men and women, aged 14-18 converged on a little agrarian community in northeast Pennsylvania, called Kutztown (halfway between Reading and Allentown).  Also, 100 "adults" came as counselors.

There is a teaching university there, with a pretty campus, lots of dorms (w/o air conditioning *pant pant*) and a cafeteria big and fast enough to feed 650 people in less than an hour.

The kids were from five LDS stakes covering the eastern quarter of Pennsylvania, all the way down through Delaware.  I'm guessing about 14,000 square miles, taking in Scranton, Reading, Philadelphia, Valley Forge (our stake) and Wilmington, DE.  I was counselor to six young men from several of these stakes.  Yes, there are six young men there.  Look carefully.

The conference was very well planned, and used a lot of good technology, like having all of the counselors on a broadcast instant messaging system.  The registration was on-line, all of the announcements and changes were on-line, and the official photos of the official photographer were posted on Facebook ("2011 Youth Conference").

Field games on a steamy field were pretty fun.  Here is the hula hoop pass, which followed the wordless birthday line-up.

We "sat it" instead of "stacked it,"  but it took three tries and a lot of togetherness.

I'm always worried that someone at the marshmallow stuff will inhale 3 mallows, but it never happens.  You get a lot of explosive laughter, though.

And this gutterball game produced a disproportionate amount of frustration.  Most teams didn't finish before the ball went to ground.  It was probably the one game they didn't want to leave until they did it, though.

Food was plentiful and fast, with lots of choices.  I didn't hear any complaints.

There were devotionals (note the epidemic of narcolepsy here...)

...and workshops (intense photographer alert, lower right!).

And dances (two!) were fun as usual.  Youth dances are similar the world over: knots of friends rock and sway until a group number comes on, at which point the girls all scream and everybody does the equivalent of a line dance.  Slow dances are also successful at getting them to pair up and pay attention to each other.

My team was pretty cool.  They weren't too bummed out about getting an old guy counselor. Here's Kalin showing who he really is...

Brenden reviewing key lessons from the workshops...

Tyler heading to one of the most popular activities, lunch...

Daniel getting so fresh for the second dance.  Not easy to do in the tandoori ovens that were our dorm rooms, but Dan the man managed it.


Thom could be caught reading or throwing a Frisbee (and sometimes both) at most times...

And Sam showing some calm, although it was way more common to see him in a crowd with a big smile.
 

We all decided this would be the album cover photo, looking fresh and full of attitude.


But what I always love most about youth conference is the smiling faces of kids enjoying themselves with 649 new and old friends.

A special shout out to my roommate, another veteran of many youth conferences, Charlie.  We had a few delightful threads of discussion that could have taken all night, and really just await the right time or campfire to pick up again.

Youth conference is really mostly about the friends.

And I'm really happy to have all of these new ones.